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The Coloured Fairy Books
The Pink Fairy Book
The Pink Fairy Book contains 41 tales from Japan, Scandinavia, Sicily, Africa, and the Catalonian tradition. They range from such familiar stories as Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow-Queen" and "The Fir-Tree" to virtually unknown tales of the Tanuki, and unforgettable Japanese creatures; of the strange labors demanded by a generous troll; for the cruel treatment given lovely Maiden Bright-eye; and of many other people and happenings that are different enough to captivate young imaginations, but familiar enough so that boys and girls everywhere will listen and understand.
244 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1897
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3276 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Lang
2,906 books555 followersTales of the Scottish writer and anthropologist Andrew Lang include
The Blue Fairy Book
(1889).
Andrew Gabriel Lang, a prolific Scotsman of letters, contributed poetry, novels, literary criticism, and collected now best folklore.
The Young Scholar and Journalist
Andrew Gabriel Lang, the son of the town clerk and the eldest of eight children, lived in Selkirk in the Scottish borderlands. The wild and beautiful landscape of childhood greatly affected the youth and inspired a lifelong love of the outdoors and a fascination with local folklore and history. Charles Edward Stuart and Robert I the Bruce surrounded him in the borders, a rich area in history. He later achieved his literary Short History of Scotland .
A gifted student and avid reader, Lang went to the prestigious Saint Andrews University, which now holds a lecture series in his honor every few years, and then to Balliol College, Oxford. He later published Oxford: Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes about the city in 1880.
Moving to London at the age of 31 years in 1875 as an already published poet, he started working as a journalist. His dry sense of humor, style, and huge array of interests made him a popular editor and columnist quickly for The Daily Post, Time magazine and Fortnightly Review. Whilst working in London, he met and married Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang, his wife.
Interest in myths and folklore continued as he and Leonora traveled through France and Italy to hear local legends, from which came the most famous The Rainbow Fairy Books . In the late 19th century, interest in the native stories declined and very few persons recounting them for young readers. In fact, some educationalists attacked harmful magical stories in general to children. To challenge this notion, Lang first began collecting stories for the first of his colored volumes.
Lang gathered already recorded stories, while other folklorists collected stories directly from source. He used his time to collect a much greater breadth over the world from Jacob Grimm, his brother, Madame d'Aulnoy, and other less well sources.
Lang also worked as the editor, often credited as its sole creator for his work despite the essential support of his wife, who transcribed and organised the translation of the text, to the success.
He published to wide acclaim. The beautiful illustrations and magic captivated the minds of children and adults alike. The success first allowed Lang and Leonora to carry on their research and in 1890 to publish a much larger print run of The Red Fairy Book , which drew on even more sources. Between 1889 and 1910, they published twelve collections, which, each with a different colored binding, collected, edited and translated a total of 437 stories. Lang, credited with reviving interest in folklore, more importantly revolutionized the Victorian view and inspired generations of parents to begin reading them to children once more.
Last Works
Lang produced and at the same time continued a wide assortment of novels, literary criticism, articles, and poetry. As Anita Silvey, literary critic, however, noted, "The irony of Lang's life and work is that although he wrote for a profession... he is best recognized for the works he did not write," the folk stories that he collected.
He finished not the last Highways and Byways of the Border but died.
Andrew Gabriel Lang, a prolific Scotsman of letters, contributed poetry, novels, literary criticism, and collected now best folklore.
The Young Scholar and Journalist
Andrew Gabriel Lang, the son of the town clerk and the eldest of eight children, lived in Selkirk in the Scottish borderlands. The wild and beautiful landscape of childhood greatly affected the youth and inspired a lifelong love of the outdoors and a fascination with local folklore and history. Charles Edward Stuart and Robert I the Bruce surrounded him in the borders, a rich area in history. He later achieved his literary Short History of Scotland .
A gifted student and avid reader, Lang went to the prestigious Saint Andrews University, which now holds a lecture series in his honor every few years, and then to Balliol College, Oxford. He later published Oxford: Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes about the city in 1880.
Moving to London at the age of 31 years in 1875 as an already published poet, he started working as a journalist. His dry sense of humor, style, and huge array of interests made him a popular editor and columnist quickly for The Daily Post, Time magazine and Fortnightly Review. Whilst working in London, he met and married Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang, his wife.
Interest in myths and folklore continued as he and Leonora traveled through France and Italy to hear local legends, from which came the most famous The Rainbow Fairy Books . In the late 19th century, interest in the native stories declined and very few persons recounting them for young readers. In fact, some educationalists attacked harmful magical stories in general to children. To challenge this notion, Lang first began collecting stories for the first of his colored volumes.
Lang gathered already recorded stories, while other folklorists collected stories directly from source. He used his time to collect a much greater breadth over the world from Jacob Grimm, his brother, Madame d'Aulnoy, and other less well sources.
Lang also worked as the editor, often credited as its sole creator for his work despite the essential support of his wife, who transcribed and organised the translation of the text, to the success.
He published to wide acclaim. The beautiful illustrations and magic captivated the minds of children and adults alike. The success first allowed Lang and Leonora to carry on their research and in 1890 to publish a much larger print run of The Red Fairy Book , which drew on even more sources. Between 1889 and 1910, they published twelve collections, which, each with a different colored binding, collected, edited and translated a total of 437 stories. Lang, credited with reviving interest in folklore, more importantly revolutionized the Victorian view and inspired generations of parents to begin reading them to children once more.
Last Works
Lang produced and at the same time continued a wide assortment of novels, literary criticism, articles, and poetry. As Anita Silvey, literary critic, however, noted, "The irony of Lang's life and work is that although he wrote for a profession... he is best recognized for the works he did not write," the folk stories that he collected.
He finished not the last Highways and Byways of the Border but died.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 83 reviews
December 3, 2016
I thought I liked fairy tales, but I don't know if I actually don't or if this collection just made me put off by them. Maybe they aren't the best fairy tales, I don't know, but it certainly was a chore to read them all.
The main problem is that it's always the same story! Either it's several brothers and the youngest is the clever one, or it's a king abusing someone's service who is helped by a clever animal, or it's a fair maiden saving someone. Isn't there another way to teach moral to kids?
Talking about morals, the ending of some tales were outrageous, where the "bad guy" wins in the end after putting lots of people in pain. Sorry, but when I have kids I don't want them to think that's the way to go!
The main problem is that it's always the same story! Either it's several brothers and the youngest is the clever one, or it's a king abusing someone's service who is helped by a clever animal, or it's a fair maiden saving someone. Isn't there another way to teach moral to kids?
Talking about morals, the ending of some tales were outrageous, where the "bad guy" wins in the end after putting lots of people in pain. Sorry, but when I have kids I don't want them to think that's the way to go!
May 5, 2018
This one was the best so far in the collection, I found that some of the stories were quite similar to those that mom used to tell me as a child.
The stories were at times similar to one another but I still enjoyed them as they reminded me of all the night time stories that are told to kids in my country.
However, if I was a parent, I wouldn't read these to my kids, as the values that I would want them to learn are far far away from those included in these fairy tales.
The stories were at times similar to one another but I still enjoyed them as they reminded me of all the night time stories that are told to kids in my country.
However, if I was a parent, I wouldn't read these to my kids, as the values that I would want them to learn are far far away from those included in these fairy tales.
April 1, 2025
ENGLISH: 41 fairy tales: 6 by Andersen; 2 by the Grimm Brothers; 4 Japanese; 8 Sicilian; 10 Danish; 2 Swedish; 3 Catalan; 1 from South Africa; 1 from Eastern Europe (Slavonia); 1 Greek that I liked less, it's quite truculent, the same as the Japanese about the Tanuki. The other 2 are from uncertain origin. In my opinion, as usual, the most original are those by Andersen that deal with everyday objects seen through magic eyes, rather than magic objects seen through everyday eyes, as in many other stories. The best of them is The fir tree, and among Andersen's fairy tales, The Snow Queen.
I had read before all the tales by Andersen and by the Grimm Brothers. Among those I had not read, I want to mention one of the Danish tales, The Princess in the Chest, especially for its unexpected final comment, although the happy ending of the fairy tale is predictable, and in the end we never know who was the dwarf who helped the protagonist. On the other hand, I didn't like the Danish story "Esben and the Witch."
There are many common threads between fairy tales from different countries. Many of the tales in this collection deal with themes that also appear in other tales. The Swedish story "The Bird 'Grip'" has one point in common with "The travelling companion" by Hans Christian Andersen, one of my favorite stories by him, which has not been included in this book. The point in common is the "grateful dead," a common folklore motif. The end of "The cunning shoemaker" is also very similar to the end of "Big Klaus and Little Klaus" by Andersen, which was included in "The yellow fairy book." I didn't like those two stories. And there are many more similarities I have located in different stories. It looks like many of the fairy stories have parallels in different countries.
Overall, I've liked this collection less than the previous three, so I'm only giving it two stars (the others had three).
ESPAÑOL: 41 cuentos de hadas: 6 de Andersen; 2 de los Hermanos Grimm; 4 japoneses; 8 sicilianos; 10 daneses; 2 suecos; 3 catalanes; 1 de África del Sur; 1 de Europa Oriental (Eslavonia); 1 griego que me gustó menos, es bastante truculento, igual que el japonés sobre el Tanuki. Los otros 2 tienen origen incierto. Los más originales, en mi opinión, y como de costumbre, son los de Andersen que tratan sobre objetos ordinarios vistos a través de ojos mágicos, en lugar de objetos mágicos vistos con ojos ordinarios, como ocurre con muchos otros cuentos. El mejor de todos, El abeto, y entre los cuentos de hadas de Andersen, La Reina de las Nieves.
Había leído antes todos los cuentos de Andersen y de Grimm. Entre los que no había leído, me pareció interesante uno de los cuentos daneses, La Princesa en el Cajón, especialmente por su comentario final inesperado, aunque el final feliz del cuento de hadas es previsible, y al final nos quedamos sin saber quién era el enano que ayudó al protagonista. Por otra parte, no me ha gustado nada el cuento danés "Esben y la bruja".
Hay muchos puntos de contacto entre los cuentos de hadas de distintos países. Muchos de los de esta recopilación tratan sobre temas que aparecen también en otros cuentos. El cuento sueco "El pájaro 'Grip'" tiene un punto en común con "El compañero de viaje" de Hans Christian Andersen, uno de sus cuentos que más me gustan, que no está incluido en este libro. El punto en común es el del "muerto agradecido", un tema folclórico bastante común. El final de "El zapatero astuto" también es muy semejante al final de "Nicolasín y Nicolasón" de Andersen, que fue incluido en "The yellow fairy book". Estos dos cuentos no me gustan. Y he localizado muchas más semejanzas en diversos cuentos. Parece que muchos cuentos de hadas tienen paralelos en distintos países.
En conjunto, esta colección me ha gustado menos que las tres anteriores, por lo que sólo le doy dos estrellas (las otras tenían tres).
I had read before all the tales by Andersen and by the Grimm Brothers. Among those I had not read, I want to mention one of the Danish tales, The Princess in the Chest, especially for its unexpected final comment, although the happy ending of the fairy tale is predictable, and in the end we never know who was the dwarf who helped the protagonist. On the other hand, I didn't like the Danish story "Esben and the Witch."
There are many common threads between fairy tales from different countries. Many of the tales in this collection deal with themes that also appear in other tales. The Swedish story "The Bird 'Grip'" has one point in common with "The travelling companion" by Hans Christian Andersen, one of my favorite stories by him, which has not been included in this book. The point in common is the "grateful dead," a common folklore motif. The end of "The cunning shoemaker" is also very similar to the end of "Big Klaus and Little Klaus" by Andersen, which was included in "The yellow fairy book." I didn't like those two stories. And there are many more similarities I have located in different stories. It looks like many of the fairy stories have parallels in different countries.
Overall, I've liked this collection less than the previous three, so I'm only giving it two stars (the others had three).
ESPAÑOL: 41 cuentos de hadas: 6 de Andersen; 2 de los Hermanos Grimm; 4 japoneses; 8 sicilianos; 10 daneses; 2 suecos; 3 catalanes; 1 de África del Sur; 1 de Europa Oriental (Eslavonia); 1 griego que me gustó menos, es bastante truculento, igual que el japonés sobre el Tanuki. Los otros 2 tienen origen incierto. Los más originales, en mi opinión, y como de costumbre, son los de Andersen que tratan sobre objetos ordinarios vistos a través de ojos mágicos, en lugar de objetos mágicos vistos con ojos ordinarios, como ocurre con muchos otros cuentos. El mejor de todos, El abeto, y entre los cuentos de hadas de Andersen, La Reina de las Nieves.
Había leído antes todos los cuentos de Andersen y de Grimm. Entre los que no había leído, me pareció interesante uno de los cuentos daneses, La Princesa en el Cajón, especialmente por su comentario final inesperado, aunque el final feliz del cuento de hadas es previsible, y al final nos quedamos sin saber quién era el enano que ayudó al protagonista. Por otra parte, no me ha gustado nada el cuento danés "Esben y la bruja".
Hay muchos puntos de contacto entre los cuentos de hadas de distintos países. Muchos de los de esta recopilación tratan sobre temas que aparecen también en otros cuentos. El cuento sueco "El pájaro 'Grip'" tiene un punto en común con "El compañero de viaje" de Hans Christian Andersen, uno de sus cuentos que más me gustan, que no está incluido en este libro. El punto en común es el del "muerto agradecido", un tema folclórico bastante común. El final de "El zapatero astuto" también es muy semejante al final de "Nicolasín y Nicolasón" de Andersen, que fue incluido en "The yellow fairy book". Estos dos cuentos no me gustan. Y he localizado muchas más semejanzas en diversos cuentos. Parece que muchos cuentos de hadas tienen paralelos en distintos países.
En conjunto, esta colección me ha gustado menos que las tres anteriores, por lo que sólo le doy dos estrellas (las otras tenían tres).
November 22, 2018
These books are addictive.
August 13, 2025
I have read this book several times, it reminds me of my mom reading to me when I was little. This is a truly great collection of stories. My favorites were, "The Troll's Daughter," "The Goblin and the Grocer," and "Snowflake." I would also highly recommend the other fairy books by Andrew Lang.
June 3, 2018
Nhiều truyện đọc vào thấy hơi nhảm nhảm, kiểu muốn cười mà cười ko nổi ấy =)))) Càng về sau thì các truyện càng hay hơn, nhưng nhìn chung chắc tại mỗi truyện khá ngắn nên mình thấy mọi thứ được giải quyết khá nhanh chóng và dễ dàng. Con nít đọc vào chắc thích hơn, còn mình người lớn rồi thì thấy nhiêu đây kỳ ảo phép thuật vẫn chưa đủ đô :D Nào giờ thấy hay nhất vẫn là truyện cổ Andersen.
Mà để ý nha, những truyện có mô-típ 3 người con thì toàn người con út là nhân vật trung tâm, sau này toàn được cưới hoàng tử/công chúa.
Truyện buồn nhất có lẽ là "Chàng Uraschimataro và con rùa" và "Bông Tuyết".
Mà để ý nha, những truyện có mô-típ 3 người con thì toàn người con út là nhân vật trung tâm, sau này toàn được cưới hoàng tử/công chúa.
Truyện buồn nhất có lẽ là "Chàng Uraschimataro và con rùa" và "Bông Tuyết".
November 4, 2023
June 2023 reread:
On my first reading I was not very impressed by this volume, but on each subsequent reading I have loved it more and more, although of course there are some stories I do not care for and skip.
The Princess in the Chest is very spooky and encourages sticking to plans we commit to, no matter how difficult things get. Christian is quite an arrogant jerk for most of the story, but he is humbled by the little man who insists on him staying at his post.
Some fairy tales are simply entertaining, and The Golden Lion is one of them. There is no deep moral, but there is a clever trick that is fun to read about.
The Three Brothers is one of my favorite Grimm tales. Not only are the skills of the brothers fascinating, but the two brothers who lose the contest are gracious toward the one who wins, and they all end up staying together for life.
My favorite part of The Troll's Daughter is the glass castle under the sea. It is described so beautifully. The troll king is an interesting antagonist and I enjoy reading about how the hero and heroine thwart him, although they manage it a bit too easily.
Maiden Bright-Eye is a Toads and Diamonds variant but with a heroine with a different name. I very much like the little man who lives underground. The moral is the common one of being polite and generous. It is easy to read such tales and think that we would be the polite ones, but how often in life are we unconsciously being rude and inconsiderate?
Hans, the Mermaid's Son, is highly entertaining with all the ways that Hans uses his superhuman strength to carry out his tasks. I am not sure if there is a lesson in this one. Perhaps it is that it is possible to be too excellent at something to the point that people feel uncomfortable and threatened.
Snowflake is a tragic tale and reminds me of Snow Daughter and Fire Son from Yellow Fairy Book. Again, I am not sure if there is a moral in it beyond saying that some things/people simply cannot be made to fit in.
The Flying Trunk, as always, is an enchanting tale about the danger of self-aggrandizement, a frequent theme in Andersen's work.
How the Dragon was Tricked is another trickster tale that is entertaining, but the ruthlessness of the hero is unsettling. In the Master Thief, for instance, those the thief fools are mostly people as dishonest as he is, but in this one, the dragon has not done anything to deserve being stolen from or having his wife murdered. Yet I still reread it every time because it is a fun story.
I had totally forgotten what the Wounded Lion is about, but I was happy to remember how the heroine sacrifices her own well-being to help the lion/prince.
The White Dove is a Rumpelstiltskin variant with the main characters getting out of a bad deal made by someone else. But this one is more entertaining to me.
The House in the Wood has the usual be polite and considerate moral, but I love how this one is about remembering to take care of animals, since they are often treated as dispensable in fairy tales.
Catherine and Her Destiny is one of the gems in this volume. The story raises the interesting question of whether we would rather get our suffering over with now or put it off for later. We don't get that choice (not in the same way, in any case), but I agree with Catherine that getting our hard times over with now allows us to enjoy the rest of the time we have.
The Water of Life features a heroine who has more determination and self-control than her brothers. Another good example to remember when people claim that fairy tales do not have "strong" heroines. I noticed this time that the story is also commentary on how the opinions of others can carry so much weight with us. The siblings have a fancy palace they worked hard for, yet they simply must get the bird and water too, just because they are told they should.
How the Hermit Helped to Win the King's Daughter is yet another "gifted companions" tale I love, and it tells us not to discard those who seem "useless." As I have mentioned before, I am not sure about being willing to slice one's wife in half for the sake of honor, but other than that it is a great tale.
The Sprig of Rosemary is similar to tales like East of the Sun, West of the Moon, but the rosemary plant revealing the prince adds variety, and there is always something magical about someone traveling to visit and sun, moon, and wind.
I have already explained why I love The Goblin and the Grocer. I love everything about it, from the beautiful tree coming from the book to the goblin using the grocer's wife's tongue to make inanimate objects talk.
Similarly to Goblin and the Grocer, I Know What I Have Learned never gets old. It is one of the wisest, most humorous fairy tales I have read. It shows how we so often imitate others, thinking that if something works for them, surely it will work for us too. But we all have different needs and abilities.
The Merry Wives is similar to two tales in other fairy books, but I always enjoy reading the the tricks the wives play on their husbands. In this one I wonder why the wives do not simply alternate paying the extra penny for their Sunday drink.
Uraschimataro and the Turtle is yet another Japanese tale I love. It is utterly magical and heartbreaking at the same time. Despite my love for it, though, I can't help thinking that the princess is selfish to keep the hero all to herself and to not tell him that so much time will pass on shore while he is under the sea with her. Maybe she did not know? What a horrible way to end one's life--disoriented and alone. I am not sure about the claim in the last line. It says that the hero gives up the sea and the princess for the sake of his parents, but he did not know at the time that he would never return to the sea. He thought he would be back in three days.
The Bird 'Grip' is similar to many other tales involving a prince disobeying orders in his quest for various objects or living creatures. This one has higher stakes, though, with the prince's objective to restore his father's sight. And I like how the fox turns out to be the dead man whose debts the prince paid.
Princess Minon-Minette is another tale I never manage to remember well. But each time I read it I enjoy the fan and ball of thread, the presence of the fairies, the eeriness of the House of Dead Leaves, and the comedy of the princess who is so light she has to be tied to her attendants. The hero also learns how to think of others before himself.
The Shirt Collar is one of Andersen's many tales about the folly of arrogance and excessive pride. It is not one of my favorites, but it is entertaining and insightful.
The Cat's Elopement is one of my favorite tales involving cats. It is sweet, exciting, and comforting.
I like most of King Lindorm. It's one tale with a "double ending." After breaking the spell on her husband (where most tales would end), the heroine is persecuted by her stepmother. I really don't like how the king's servant burns a sheep and two lambs in place of the queen and her children. I guess he didn't have much choice, but it's a cruel part. I also don't understand why King Lindorm kills all of his brides--just because they are lowly slaves? That, too, is distasteful. Otherwise, I enjoy the story.
I enjoy the Story of Ciccu with its magical objects and absurd king with his dramatic demands, but I'm not a fan of how Ciccu steals from his brothers in the beginning.
I do not enjoy the violence and revenge in Slaying of the Tanuki, but I do appreciate the friendship of the hare.
The Two Brothers is a very common plot of one brother being imprisoned, enchanted, or killed and the other brother coming to save him. I do not get tired of this plot, though, and this one has added depth with the first brother killing the second and later repenting.
The King Who Would Have a Beautiful Wife is a strange story, but it is interesting. It shows how quickly we can betray someone close to us and also how easily we will believe what is easy and desirable.
Esben and the Witch involves a lot of casual violence, but I love how Esben keeps saving his brothers and is finally appreciated for it.
The Man without a Heart is not the most interesting tale, but I like the mysterious old church and the animals joining the hero for his meals and helping him later in return.
Don Giovanni de la Fortuna is similar to the Grimms' Bearskin. I love both tales and how they encourage us not to judge by appearances. But I can't blame the daughter who is grossed out by Don Giovanni. If someone had not bathed in years, I wouldn't want to marry him either!
The Sparrow with the Slit Tongue is a bit brutal, but it has a satisfying ending.
The Fir Tree has a message that is one of the most important and one of the most difficult to follow.
I will probably always puzzle over the meanings of The Snow Man and Snow Queen, but they fascinate me.
***
2014
Favorites:
The Cats' Elopement
The Princess in the Chest (perseverance when we commit to something)
Snowflake
Catherine and Her Destiny
How the Hermit Helped to Win the King's Daughter (other than the cutting wife in half part)
The Water of Life
The Wounded Lion
The Sprig of Rosemary
The White Dove
The Troll's Daughter
Esben and the Witch (Finally, he received gratitude--but how could he kill all the witch's daughters with a clear conscience?)
I Know What I Have Learned (so true of human nature--we tend to be copycats!)
The Flying Trunk
Goblin and the Grocer (one of my very favorites in this collection and of Andersen. We need both physical and spiritual nourishment, and life becomes unbalanced when we favor one or the other)
On my first reading I was not very impressed by this volume, but on each subsequent reading I have loved it more and more, although of course there are some stories I do not care for and skip.
The Princess in the Chest is very spooky and encourages sticking to plans we commit to, no matter how difficult things get. Christian is quite an arrogant jerk for most of the story, but he is humbled by the little man who insists on him staying at his post.
Some fairy tales are simply entertaining, and The Golden Lion is one of them. There is no deep moral, but there is a clever trick that is fun to read about.
The Three Brothers is one of my favorite Grimm tales. Not only are the skills of the brothers fascinating, but the two brothers who lose the contest are gracious toward the one who wins, and they all end up staying together for life.
My favorite part of The Troll's Daughter is the glass castle under the sea. It is described so beautifully. The troll king is an interesting antagonist and I enjoy reading about how the hero and heroine thwart him, although they manage it a bit too easily.
Maiden Bright-Eye is a Toads and Diamonds variant but with a heroine with a different name. I very much like the little man who lives underground. The moral is the common one of being polite and generous. It is easy to read such tales and think that we would be the polite ones, but how often in life are we unconsciously being rude and inconsiderate?
Hans, the Mermaid's Son, is highly entertaining with all the ways that Hans uses his superhuman strength to carry out his tasks. I am not sure if there is a lesson in this one. Perhaps it is that it is possible to be too excellent at something to the point that people feel uncomfortable and threatened.
Snowflake is a tragic tale and reminds me of Snow Daughter and Fire Son from Yellow Fairy Book. Again, I am not sure if there is a moral in it beyond saying that some things/people simply cannot be made to fit in.
The Flying Trunk, as always, is an enchanting tale about the danger of self-aggrandizement, a frequent theme in Andersen's work.
How the Dragon was Tricked is another trickster tale that is entertaining, but the ruthlessness of the hero is unsettling. In the Master Thief, for instance, those the thief fools are mostly people as dishonest as he is, but in this one, the dragon has not done anything to deserve being stolen from or having his wife murdered. Yet I still reread it every time because it is a fun story.
I had totally forgotten what the Wounded Lion is about, but I was happy to remember how the heroine sacrifices her own well-being to help the lion/prince.
The White Dove is a Rumpelstiltskin variant with the main characters getting out of a bad deal made by someone else. But this one is more entertaining to me.
The House in the Wood has the usual be polite and considerate moral, but I love how this one is about remembering to take care of animals, since they are often treated as dispensable in fairy tales.
Catherine and Her Destiny is one of the gems in this volume. The story raises the interesting question of whether we would rather get our suffering over with now or put it off for later. We don't get that choice (not in the same way, in any case), but I agree with Catherine that getting our hard times over with now allows us to enjoy the rest of the time we have.
The Water of Life features a heroine who has more determination and self-control than her brothers. Another good example to remember when people claim that fairy tales do not have "strong" heroines. I noticed this time that the story is also commentary on how the opinions of others can carry so much weight with us. The siblings have a fancy palace they worked hard for, yet they simply must get the bird and water too, just because they are told they should.
How the Hermit Helped to Win the King's Daughter is yet another "gifted companions" tale I love, and it tells us not to discard those who seem "useless." As I have mentioned before, I am not sure about being willing to slice one's wife in half for the sake of honor, but other than that it is a great tale.
The Sprig of Rosemary is similar to tales like East of the Sun, West of the Moon, but the rosemary plant revealing the prince adds variety, and there is always something magical about someone traveling to visit and sun, moon, and wind.
I have already explained why I love The Goblin and the Grocer. I love everything about it, from the beautiful tree coming from the book to the goblin using the grocer's wife's tongue to make inanimate objects talk.
Similarly to Goblin and the Grocer, I Know What I Have Learned never gets old. It is one of the wisest, most humorous fairy tales I have read. It shows how we so often imitate others, thinking that if something works for them, surely it will work for us too. But we all have different needs and abilities.
The Merry Wives is similar to two tales in other fairy books, but I always enjoy reading the the tricks the wives play on their husbands. In this one I wonder why the wives do not simply alternate paying the extra penny for their Sunday drink.
Uraschimataro and the Turtle is yet another Japanese tale I love. It is utterly magical and heartbreaking at the same time. Despite my love for it, though, I can't help thinking that the princess is selfish to keep the hero all to herself and to not tell him that so much time will pass on shore while he is under the sea with her. Maybe she did not know? What a horrible way to end one's life--disoriented and alone. I am not sure about the claim in the last line. It says that the hero gives up the sea and the princess for the sake of his parents, but he did not know at the time that he would never return to the sea. He thought he would be back in three days.
The Bird 'Grip' is similar to many other tales involving a prince disobeying orders in his quest for various objects or living creatures. This one has higher stakes, though, with the prince's objective to restore his father's sight. And I like how the fox turns out to be the dead man whose debts the prince paid.
Princess Minon-Minette is another tale I never manage to remember well. But each time I read it I enjoy the fan and ball of thread, the presence of the fairies, the eeriness of the House of Dead Leaves, and the comedy of the princess who is so light she has to be tied to her attendants. The hero also learns how to think of others before himself.
The Shirt Collar is one of Andersen's many tales about the folly of arrogance and excessive pride. It is not one of my favorites, but it is entertaining and insightful.
The Cat's Elopement is one of my favorite tales involving cats. It is sweet, exciting, and comforting.
I like most of King Lindorm. It's one tale with a "double ending." After breaking the spell on her husband (where most tales would end), the heroine is persecuted by her stepmother. I really don't like how the king's servant burns a sheep and two lambs in place of the queen and her children. I guess he didn't have much choice, but it's a cruel part. I also don't understand why King Lindorm kills all of his brides--just because they are lowly slaves? That, too, is distasteful. Otherwise, I enjoy the story.
I enjoy the Story of Ciccu with its magical objects and absurd king with his dramatic demands, but I'm not a fan of how Ciccu steals from his brothers in the beginning.
I do not enjoy the violence and revenge in Slaying of the Tanuki, but I do appreciate the friendship of the hare.
The Two Brothers is a very common plot of one brother being imprisoned, enchanted, or killed and the other brother coming to save him. I do not get tired of this plot, though, and this one has added depth with the first brother killing the second and later repenting.
The King Who Would Have a Beautiful Wife is a strange story, but it is interesting. It shows how quickly we can betray someone close to us and also how easily we will believe what is easy and desirable.
Esben and the Witch involves a lot of casual violence, but I love how Esben keeps saving his brothers and is finally appreciated for it.
The Man without a Heart is not the most interesting tale, but I like the mysterious old church and the animals joining the hero for his meals and helping him later in return.
Don Giovanni de la Fortuna is similar to the Grimms' Bearskin. I love both tales and how they encourage us not to judge by appearances. But I can't blame the daughter who is grossed out by Don Giovanni. If someone had not bathed in years, I wouldn't want to marry him either!
The Sparrow with the Slit Tongue is a bit brutal, but it has a satisfying ending.
The Fir Tree has a message that is one of the most important and one of the most difficult to follow.
I will probably always puzzle over the meanings of The Snow Man and Snow Queen, but they fascinate me.
***
2014
Favorites:
The Cats' Elopement
The Princess in the Chest (perseverance when we commit to something)
Snowflake
Catherine and Her Destiny
How the Hermit Helped to Win the King's Daughter (other than the cutting wife in half part)
The Water of Life
The Wounded Lion
The Sprig of Rosemary
The White Dove
The Troll's Daughter
Esben and the Witch (Finally, he received gratitude--but how could he kill all the witch's daughters with a clear conscience?)
I Know What I Have Learned (so true of human nature--we tend to be copycats!)
The Flying Trunk
Goblin and the Grocer (one of my very favorites in this collection and of Andersen. We need both physical and spiritual nourishment, and life becomes unbalanced when we favor one or the other)
April 9, 2019
The Pink Fairy Book has, in my opinion, some of the best and most interesting tales in the series. It also features some of my favorite H.J. Ford illustrations(in "How the Dragon was Tricked", "Uraschimataro and the Turtle", "The Snow-Queen", and "Esben and the Witch"). But as for the stories themselves, here is my now-customary list of favorites:
-The Cat's Elopement
-How the Dragon was Tricked
-The Goblin and the Grocer
-The House in the Wood
-Uraschimataro and the Turtle
-The Slaying of the Tanuki
-The Flying Trunk
-The Snow-Man
-The Shirt-Collar(a clever and fun conclusion to this one)
-The Three Brothers(not a particularly unique story, but a pleasant one nonetheless.)
-The Snow-Queen
-Hans, the Mermaid's Son
-Peter Bull(an odd story, but quite funny as well)
-Snowflake
-I Know What I Have Learned
-The Cunning Shoemaker
-The Merry Wives
-The Cat's Elopement
-How the Dragon was Tricked
-The Goblin and the Grocer
-The House in the Wood
-Uraschimataro and the Turtle
-The Slaying of the Tanuki
-The Flying Trunk
-The Snow-Man
-The Shirt-Collar(a clever and fun conclusion to this one)
-The Three Brothers(not a particularly unique story, but a pleasant one nonetheless.)
-The Snow-Queen
-Hans, the Mermaid's Son
-Peter Bull(an odd story, but quite funny as well)
-Snowflake
-I Know What I Have Learned
-The Cunning Shoemaker
-The Merry Wives
July 11, 2007
I don't remember a single particular story from this book, but I remember being scared to death while I was reading it. I don't read anything that could really be classified as horror, but this book made me feel the way I imagine people feel when they read horror stories. I think I may have been about eight or ten when I read it. Perhaps I should find a copy (I don't think I have it any more) and see what terrified me so much. Things that shouldn't ordinarily be scary have been known to frighten me (while I tend to be unmindful of truly dangerous people, places and situations; though that has always turned out more or less okay for me). It was probably something as silly as my fear of rabbits.
September 15, 2013
Albert Einstein said, "if you want your children to be intelligent read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." Andrew Lang compiled twelve books of fairy tales from all over the world. He and his wife translated the ones not in English. It is a rainbow + of books. The Blue and Red books have the most familiar and it is amazing in reading the tales how many common themes are repeated in different cultures and societies.
I read "The Pink Fairy Book" to my 9 year old and she would often stop and say that sounded like the other fairy tale. Even if you don't read all twelve books, getting a good exposure to a collection like this one will help your child start being able to discuss literature.
I read "The Pink Fairy Book" to my 9 year old and she would often stop and say that sounded like the other fairy tale. Even if you don't read all twelve books, getting a good exposure to a collection like this one will help your child start being able to discuss literature.
March 10, 2018
While I enjoyed some of the stories in here, I don't think any were particularly memorable. A lot of them shared similar features and it started feeling very repetitive and started feeling like a chore to read. I was hoping that the stories would show a bit more of the culture as these are from Japan, Italy, Africa and Scandinavia, but this had little impact on the stories - they were pretty much the same recycled idea. Some a bit weirder than others. Overall I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped and I was pretty disappointed. 2.5 ⭐
April 6, 2018
All new stories to me and nothing familiar. Not bad but not my favorite of the colored books so far. I do not have a top favorite story, but was disappointed with Hans, the Mermaid's Son. Thought it would be interesting but it became disjointed with wasted potential. The Pink book doesn't focus as heavily on the ultimate goal always being kings and marriage (although that's in there a few times too), but it does emphasize the money climb and trials/journeys, which was a nice change since I was getting suffocated by too many king/queen tales.
February 2, 2010
An excellent collection of fairy tales from all over the world (complete with incredibly politically incorrect original Preface). I particularly loved the Snow-Queen. Have so many girls ever kicked so much ass in a single fairy tale before? The White Dove was another favorite. I'm going to have to find the Fairy Books of other colors now.
January 10, 2021
I read most of the “color” fairy tales that Lang gathered when I was still in middle school. The Pink Fairy Book was one that I had started but never completed and I don’t remember why. I did notice that some of the tales are quite gory and violent, while in other tales evil seems to triumph, so perhaps that is why I never finished it. The tales are from all over the world and are a part of the cultural history of those countries. I find this fascinating as many of the tales are similar in basic plot outline.
August 18, 2020
As the others in this series edited by Andrew Lang, the Pink Fairy Book is delightful. You will encounter many familiar themes, but each with a twist based on their country of origin. The Japanese tales were especially interesting, but in the end they all had similar morals about kindness and courage.
July 1, 2017
An impressive collection of stories. A lot of them had the same features but very different than the usual Grimm Bothers Fairy Tales. I'm planning on going back to some of the stories to have a read again - they were that interesting. A lot of youngest sons and poor girls being the heroes.
May 23, 2018
The Librivox recording I listened to was very well done and all by the same reader, which made it better than the others I have listened to so far.
May 31, 2018
I really liked to read some of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy books in this one. It was very interesting to read The Snow Queen and see how different it is from Frozen.
May 6, 2021
This was my first Fairy Book. I was not familiar with many of these tales, but really enjoyed hearing Japanese folklore.
Read
October 15, 2016Interesting as always..
September 22, 2021
For me, this is a very weak collection of stories, and a poor successor to the first four Fairy Books! Some of the tales are versions of ones that have appeared in previous books, as is this series' wont, but this book seems to contain all the inferior versions. Whether they were familiar or not, I almost always found that the stories didn't make enough sense, or the protagonists were total jerks, or both!
The only really well-known story in this collection is 'The Snow Queen', which I thought started out okay but rapidly descended into nonsense. 'King Landorm' also started well, but then it went on too long, and I was disappointed that the ending was not as good as the one I predicted (mine tying up a loose end and bringing everything together, which turned out not to be the case at all). 'The Princess in the Chest' had a lot of potential, but felt totally unfinished (I consider that some weird occurrences do need to be at least partially explained!). 'The Story of Ciccu' made a certain amount of sense, and I did quite like the protagonist, but it's only average compared to my picks from previous volumes. But I think my pick from this book must be 'I Know What I Have Learned'; it's of the guy-being-an-idiot-until-he-kills-himself variety, and uses the trope quite engagingly.
This makes me nervous for reading the rest of the series (with just over half to go!). Did Lang manage to find any more decent stories after peaking with The Yellow Fairy Book...?
The only really well-known story in this collection is 'The Snow Queen', which I thought started out okay but rapidly descended into nonsense. 'King Landorm' also started well, but then it went on too long, and I was disappointed that the ending was not as good as the one I predicted (mine tying up a loose end and bringing everything together, which turned out not to be the case at all). 'The Princess in the Chest' had a lot of potential, but felt totally unfinished (I consider that some weird occurrences do need to be at least partially explained!). 'The Story of Ciccu' made a certain amount of sense, and I did quite like the protagonist, but it's only average compared to my picks from previous volumes. But I think my pick from this book must be 'I Know What I Have Learned'; it's of the guy-being-an-idiot-until-he-kills-himself variety, and uses the trope quite engagingly.
This makes me nervous for reading the rest of the series (with just over half to go!). Did Lang manage to find any more decent stories after peaking with The Yellow Fairy Book...?
December 12, 2015
This collection leans heavily toward the Danish and Italian tales. Including, alas, Hans Christian Anderson, whose work I have never been fond of. (Though I will note that "The Goblin And the Grocer" was translated pre-modern fantasy; the goblin as a household sprite, like a brownie, is an old tradition.) "The King Who Would Have a Beautiful Wife" struck me as nasty. But it has a number of good ones. I particularly like "Catherine and Her Fate," "The Man Without A Heart", "Esben and the Witch," and "Don Giovanni de la Fortune."
May 1, 2010
I decided to (re)read all the color fairy books edited by Lang--this is the one I most recently completed. I read them once when I was in--in third grade? fourth grade?. On to the next one, The Grey Fairy Book, and the first story is "Donkeyskin," and I can see clearly how Robin McKinley used the story in her novel, Deerskin.
May 26, 2016
I loved reading through these different fairy / folk tales from different cultures. From these, it is interesting to see what different cultures found to be important messages to send through their generations. I especially enjoyed I Know What I Know from Denmark.
May 22, 2007
These volumes helped to shape my dreams that I had of being a knight-hero :D
January 6, 2009
Amazing as usual. I love the illustrations. I never knew there were so many fairy tale stories out there and yet I am continually amazed as I read story after story of new adventures.
July 17, 2012
this was fun. I really liked the Princess who was so light she blew away in the wind.
great assortment of fairy tales with a great mixture of fun, scary, and silly.
great assortment of fairy tales with a great mixture of fun, scary, and silly.
January 4, 2018
Love it cannot wait to read the other color fae books.
August 10, 2015
1. The Cat's Elopement: Two cats are in love and want to marry, but their owners won't let them, so they run away but are separated again when the cat is adopted by a princess after he kills her snake-suitor. Then the cats are reunited and live happily ever after. Being a cat is tough.
2. How the Dragon was Tricked: Some dude hates his brother (for a good reason, as we find out), so he ties the guy to a tree (the parents are either dead or don't care). A hunchbacked shepherd sees the guy and asks what happened. The guy tells him it's how he cured his hunched back, so the shepherd wants to try it too. He unties the guy, gets tied to the tree, and watches as his sheep get stolen. In a few years the guy gets really famous for his tricks, and the king arrests him but offers a pardon if he steals the dragon's horse, then his bedspread (which gets the dragon's wife killed), then the dragon himself (which gets the king killed). Then the guy marries the king's daughter and takes over. The dragon vanishes due to plot conveniences. TL;DR: con your way to the top.
3. The Goblin and the Grocer: Goblin lives with a grocer and gets paid in butter, but falls in love with poetry being read by the student. He wants to work for the student, but can't give up the security that comes with the grocer. The moral is that you have to feed both body and soul, and the security of the body often takes priority.
4. The House in the Wood: Dude has three daughters. He goes woodcutting and wants them to bring him lunch by following his crumb trail. Naturally all daughters get lost. The first two find a house in the woods, enter, see an old dude and three animals. He asks them to make dinner, so they do, but they don't feed the animals. The girls then go to sleep and the dude throws a switch and they fall into the dungeon. But the third daughter feeds the animals first, so when she wakes up she's in a palace and the animals are human and the old dude is a hot prince. Apparently here was a spell, she broke it, marriage time. It's Beauty in the Beast + Hansel and Gretel, but with less cannibalism. And Beauty and Beast got to know each other better, kidnapping and all. P.S. don't make trails out of edibles!
5. Uraschimataro and the Turtle: Uraschimataro saves a turtle, and a few years later it saves him back and takes him to a magical sea palace where he and the sea princess fall in love. One day he starts missing his parents, so he asks to go back, but the princess tells him that he shall never see her again. He still wants to go, so she gives him a box and tells him not to open it. When he gets back on land it's been 300 years and he doesn't recognize anything. In a moment of fear, or madness, or despair, he opens the box and the years catch up with him. He tells his story and dies. The story ends by saying that he gave up the princess because his love for his parents. We don't know much about his parents, only that they loved him, but he obviously lost all ties to humanity and didn't know what to do.
6. The Slaying of the Tanuki: Tanuki likes fucking with this one peasant who's friends with a rabbit. One day the peasant catches the Tanuki and plans to kill it, but the Tanuki tricks the farmer's wife into letting him go. He then kills her, cooks her, and pretends to be her while the peasant eats her. He reveals his trick and the peasant is devastated. The rabbit plays a trick on the Tanuki as revenge, but it's not enough, so they kill Tanuki. And then they live happily ever after. Cannibalism, murder, and platonic cohabitation with your BFF rabbit who helped you avenge your wife's death FTW?
7. The Flying Trunk: A merchant's son spends all his inheritance, but one of his friends conveniently gives him a magical trunk he just happened to have? The merchant's son flies to Turkey and seduces the princess whom he tells he's a god. She agrees to marry him, and then he wins over her parents by telling them a story where all the kitchen things are having a contest? The same night he puts on a fireworks show, but a spark burns his trunk and he doesn't go to marry the princess. Instead he travels and tells stories, while the princess waits for him and pines? Whatever dude, no sympathy.
8. The Snow-Man: he's newly built and gets told about life by the yard dog, whose tragic back-story we learn. Then the snowman falls in love with the stove. We find it's because at his core he was a broom used to clean out the stove. In the long run none of this matters.
9. The Shirt Collar: the moral of this story is about god's judgment of our souls and how he'll know all about our lives, so we better be good. But really it's about a douche dude-bro who was harassing women and got what he deserved.
10. The Princess in the Chest: king and queen have no babies and king blames queen, though obviously he doesn't know how babies are made. He tells the queen that he'll be back in a year, and if there's no baby by then, he'll get another wife. Queen goes to a witch(?) who tells her to eat a magical plant that will give her a daughter. But the daughter cannot be seen by anyone but a special nurse for 14 years. The king breaks that condition, and the princess dies. Before she dies she makes the king promise to put her in a wooden chest in the church and have someone watch over her every night. Every morning after that the watchers are nowhere to be found. Then Christian the smith comes by, and gets drunk enough to accept the job. He tries running away the first night, but is stopped by a little man who tells him how to survive the night. This happens two more times until finally the princess is free of the curse and they get married.
But who's the little man? And why is it later implied that Christian imagined the whole thing in a drunken stupor? And the princess is 14, and possibly half magical plant. Don't drink and drive.
11. The Three Brothers: whichever was the best at his trade would inherit the house, except they were all masters and they all liked each other, so they all lived together happily ever after and were buried in the same grave the end.
12. The Snow Queen: ladies helping each other, what's not to like? I think I'd love to read a long retelling, where we get the detailed version of Gerda's journey and Key's stay with the queen. Also, the Queen isn't the villain in this, she's just a powerful natural force. The villain is that little goblin with the mirror.
13. The Fir-tree: the tree wants to grow up, so it doesn't notices the beauty around it. It gets cut down and used for Christmas, which is the happiest night of its life. Then it's promptly forgotten for a while, until its used for kindling. The end. Feel sad for a wasted life.
14. Hans, the Mermaid's Son: he's supernaturally strong and gets hired by some guy who's super afraid of him and spends the whole story trying to get rid of him. He even goes so far as to send Hans to Purgatory to ask for tribute, which Hans gets. This has a similar flavor to a Russian tale by Pushkin, but the guy in it is not supernatural, just a "fool," and he ends up killing his master as payment for his work.
15. Peter Bull: I guess it's lucky that Peter turned out to be an OK guy, and probably took care of the old people because they left him the money? The clerk is just a con artist, but then again, he was asked to teach a calf to talk.
16. The Bird Grip: literally Ivan and the Wolf, but with a fox and a blindness subplot. We are at least given a reason for the fox to help. But I still don't see why the horse, princess, and bird were happy to see the prince. The fox was a spirit whose life he ransomed and who needed his curse removed, but all the others were stolen. Maybe we're to assume their lives sucked and that the kidnapping liberated them? And I guess the three kings just never looked for their stuff and people ever?
17. Snowflake: they make a child out of snow and are surprised she's unhappy in the summer?
18. I Know What I Have Learned: an old man visits his three daughters who are each married to a troll. Each troll does a magic trick to feed them, then gives the old man money which the man loses on the way home because he suddenly remembers about his cow and just leave the money in the woods. He tries telling his wife about the money, but she never sees it, so she berates him and he says he knows what he learned. He then tries to perform the tricks the trolls did but gets hurt and dies. So really he learned nothing.
19. The Cunning Shoemaker: fool me once, shame on you, but any more than that and maybe it's not the shoemaker who's clever but the robbers who are total gullible idiots.
20. The King's Beautiful Wife: the king wants to marry the most beautiful woman in the world. Instead he accidentally marries an 85 year old with gorgeous hands who outwits him by telling him she cannot be seen in the sun. When he finds out she's old he throws her out of the window, but some fairies arrive and turn her beautiful and kind and wise and the king begs her forgiveness. She lies to her sister about her beauty (she tells her to cut her head), which seems kinda cold.
21. Catherine and her Destiny: destiny comes to Catherine and asks her if she wants a happy youth or a happy old age. Catherine chooses a happy old age and her father immediately dies and she´s forced to become a servant, but every time she finds a place her destiny chases her out. Finally, after 7 years she gets another lady's destiny to talk to hers. Her destiny gives her a ball of silk which is just the right color for the Kings bride's dress. He promised to pay its weight in gold, and no matter how much gold he puts on the scales the silk is still too heavy. So he decides to marry Catherine instead of his bride and they lived happily ever after. I wonder what the ex felt about this whole thing.
22. The Hermit and the King's Daughter: so, it's the flying ship story, except the guy is brainless. He has people with very specific skills, but when he's given very specific tasks he doesn't think to use those skills? Also, YOUR WIFE ISN'T PROPERTY! YOU DON'T CUT HER IN HALF AND GIVE HALF OF HER TO ANYONE!
23. The Water of Life: three brothers and a sister build a palace and a church, but are told that they're missing the Water of Life, the Tree of Beauty, and a Talking Bird. To get them, hey have to climb a mountain covered with stones who were once people, and who jeer them as they walk up. If at any time they turn around they also become stone. The three brothers fail, but the sister succeeds and then the Prince marries her the end.
24. The Wounded Lion: he's actually a prince who's cursed into being a lion by a giant and the only way to reverse the curse is to make a jacket for the giant out of a princesses' hair. Good thing the prince has a sister who can volunteer her hair...oops, no, some random girl has to beg the sister for the hair, not knowing she's the sister. But in the end the girl frees the prince and they get married. I wonder if the girl's master ever got his animals back (the giant stole them).
25. The Man Without a Heart: seven brothers are sick of having to do housework, so six of them go looking for wives. On the way an old man asks them to find him a wife, but they ignore him. They find seven sisters, and on the way back the old man demands the youngest as wife, and when they refuse he turns them into stone and takes the girl. She seems cool with it, but worries that he'll die and she'll be stuck alone in the woods, to which the old man replies that he's a wizard and his heart is hidden so he can't die. Soon, the youngest brother arrives and the girl tells him about the heart. He searches for it and gets some help from animals on the way, then kills the heart which was a bird. He free the brothers and sisters and everyone marries.
26. The Two Brothers: they catch and release a magical fish who grants them horses and armor. Older brother saves a princess from a dragon, but ventures on for almost 8 years before marrying her. Soon after the marriage he leaves her to fight a witch and gets killed. Younger brother finds out, and comes to the palace to figure out what happened. Princess thinks he's her husband (because they look similar?), and he doesn't correct her, but he also doesn't let her sleep with him. He rescues older brother with the help of random hermit, but is killed by older brother who thinks he fucked his wife. When he finds out younger brother didn't, he feels bad and resurrects him with the witch's magical ointment. And then they live happily ever after.
27. Master and Pupil: a youth pretends he can't read and learns to be a magician, then uses his shape-shifting abilities to con people. The magician hears about this and they fight, but the youth eventually wins. We're supposed to believe he never uses his powers again. Read a similar story, only the wizard had a princess and her court imprisoned as animals and objects.
28. The Golden Lion: two brothers try to find a princess in a castle, but fail and the king kills them. The youngest brother listens to a beggar-woman who suggests he build a Trojan lion. He sneaks into the palace where he shares two lines of dialogue with the princess and she agrees to help him. He them goes to the king, finds the princess, and they get married. The king was a dick.
29. The Sprig of Rosemary: a woman finds a magical underground palace and marries the prince, but is told not to touch a certain chest. She does and finds her husband's magical snake-skin. The palace crumbles around her. She seeks her husband via Sun, Moon, and Wind, and gets a magical gift from each. She finds him without a memory of her and about to marry an ugly princess, but she manages to infiltrate the castle and jog his memory. Then they get married and no one has a problem with it?
30.The White Dove: two princes are forced to promise their youngest, unborn brother to a witch. She comes to collect the prince many years later and gives him impossible tasks. He is assisted by a princess-turned-dove, who was either herself a witch or learned all the tricks during her imprisonment. They escape, using more magic, and live happily ever after. It's probably very useful in negotiations to have a witch-wife. Oh, you don't want to sign the treaty? Oops, the Queen just turned your soldiers into turnips, would you care to reconsider?
31.The Troll's Daughter: the troll is a great magician who captured all the wild animals and has all his neighbors indebted to him. He also hid his daughter all alone at the bottom of the ocean. A young man starts working for the troll, spending the first year as a rabbit, the second year as a raven, and the third as a fish--which is when he meets the daughter who tells him the complex steps necessary to kill her father and free her. The youth follows those steps and kills the troll, at which point all the neighboring kinds make him emperor. Fathers: don't imprison your daughters. They will find a way to kill you.
32. Esben and the Witch: more like Esben who himself is some sort of witch and his 11 ungrateful brothers. I want to know more about the mom. Did she teach him magic?
33. Princess Minon-Minette: three fairies each raise a royal child.
a. King S is raised by Inconstance, who teaches him nothing useful and there's almost a civil war, but his mad playing calms everyone down. Then he goes looking for a wife and meets a princess who's so light that she gets carried away by the wind. He decides not to marry her.
b. Another fairy raised Minon-Minette, and wants her to marry S, because he's a good dude? So she makes him help her, but afterwards he can't win the princess (he has no game), so the fairy gives him a silk string and he goes away.
c. A third fairy gets upset that Minon-Minette doesn't want to marry her charge, and curses the princess to unhappiness until (insert improbable event here).
d. S wonders into the Iron King's land and gets imprisoned, but escapes thanks to the magical string. Minon-Minette hears about this and goes to war against the Iron King, but the fairy who cursed her captures her. But the princess' fairy sneaks her a magical fan which flies into the air, where she meets S, who had been using the magical string?
e. They go to war against the Iron King.
f. Profit.
34. Maiden Bright-Eye: she feeds a magical dude and he gives her beauty and coins-falling-out-of-mouth. Then the ugly stepsister beats the magical dude and gets ugliness and toads. Then the king wants to marry the pretty sister because her brother works for him. But the stepsister kills her on the way and marries the king, who finds out she's ugly and is terribly upset with the brother, who was aware of what's going on the whole time. Everything could have been resolved with the brother speaking up.
35. The Merry Wives: the tailor's wife, the carpenter's wife, and the smith's wife are all friends, but always argue about whose husband is the stupidest. Finally, they have a contest, where the tailor's wife convinces her husband to be a dog, the carpenter's wife convinces her husband he's dead, and the smith's wife convinces him to go to the carpenter's funeral in his birthday suit. The carpenter's wife wins.
36. King Lindorm: first, the child-is-a-serpent and gets rescued by a lady who makes him take his skins off. Second, the stepmother wants to destroy the stepdaughter. Third, the king is away at war and through switched letters is told his children are whelps, and then in another switched letter the queen is supposed put to death. Fourth, queen in disguise helps an unrelated stranger with getting his soul back. Fifth, king comes back and goes to look for his queen but doesn't recognize her when he sees her. Lastly, the evil stepmother is killed. But what happened to the king's younger brother, who thought he was the rightful king his whole life?
37. The Jackal, the Dove and the Panther: the Jackal eats a baby dove, almost murders a heron, and then eats up 10 baby panthers and gets the mother killed. Harsh.
38. The Little Hare: more like different stories thrown together. 1. a man gets his wife the liver of a nyamatsane by killing the nyamatsane grandmother and then wearing her skin. The liver is so salty that the wife drinks ALL the water. 2. the hare drinks water when it's not allowed and blames the rabbit. 3. the hare burns the rabbit to death. 4. the hare gets the lion lots of game, but then kills the lion by tying it to the roof. 5. the hare wears the lion's skin and kills lots of hyenas, but is found out and has to cut his ears off. He's a shit.
39. The Sparrow with the Slit Tongue: a kind man has a mean wife. When he saves a sparrow and keeps it as a pet the wife grows jealous and hurts the sparrow before chasing it away. The husband fails to find it, until one day he finds a house where a maiden lives claiming she's the sparrow. She hosts him as they catch up and gives him a gift. When he comes home the wife scolds him, but she also wants a gift and he tells her where to go. Instead of jewels the sparrow gives the wife some poison serpents.
40. The Story of Ciccu: the STORIES. First he acquires and loses three magical objects. Secondly he and his two older brothers sell some figs to the king, but each brother meets a magical man and as only Ciccu is nice to him, only he gets rewarded. So the king gives Ciccu a job, where he apparently befriends a talking, all-knowing horse. By this point the brothers hate him and give the king ideas for tasks to send Ciccu to accomplish. The last one involves kidnapping a bride and retrieving her items, and ends with jumping into an oven. The king dies and Ciccu gets to marry the bride and become king because who cares about succession? And the bride's parents never looked for her?
2. How the Dragon was Tricked: Some dude hates his brother (for a good reason, as we find out), so he ties the guy to a tree (the parents are either dead or don't care). A hunchbacked shepherd sees the guy and asks what happened. The guy tells him it's how he cured his hunched back, so the shepherd wants to try it too. He unties the guy, gets tied to the tree, and watches as his sheep get stolen. In a few years the guy gets really famous for his tricks, and the king arrests him but offers a pardon if he steals the dragon's horse, then his bedspread (which gets the dragon's wife killed), then the dragon himself (which gets the king killed). Then the guy marries the king's daughter and takes over. The dragon vanishes due to plot conveniences. TL;DR: con your way to the top.
3. The Goblin and the Grocer: Goblin lives with a grocer and gets paid in butter, but falls in love with poetry being read by the student. He wants to work for the student, but can't give up the security that comes with the grocer. The moral is that you have to feed both body and soul, and the security of the body often takes priority.
4. The House in the Wood: Dude has three daughters. He goes woodcutting and wants them to bring him lunch by following his crumb trail. Naturally all daughters get lost. The first two find a house in the woods, enter, see an old dude and three animals. He asks them to make dinner, so they do, but they don't feed the animals. The girls then go to sleep and the dude throws a switch and they fall into the dungeon. But the third daughter feeds the animals first, so when she wakes up she's in a palace and the animals are human and the old dude is a hot prince. Apparently here was a spell, she broke it, marriage time. It's Beauty in the Beast + Hansel and Gretel, but with less cannibalism. And Beauty and Beast got to know each other better, kidnapping and all. P.S. don't make trails out of edibles!
5. Uraschimataro and the Turtle: Uraschimataro saves a turtle, and a few years later it saves him back and takes him to a magical sea palace where he and the sea princess fall in love. One day he starts missing his parents, so he asks to go back, but the princess tells him that he shall never see her again. He still wants to go, so she gives him a box and tells him not to open it. When he gets back on land it's been 300 years and he doesn't recognize anything. In a moment of fear, or madness, or despair, he opens the box and the years catch up with him. He tells his story and dies. The story ends by saying that he gave up the princess because his love for his parents. We don't know much about his parents, only that they loved him, but he obviously lost all ties to humanity and didn't know what to do.
6. The Slaying of the Tanuki: Tanuki likes fucking with this one peasant who's friends with a rabbit. One day the peasant catches the Tanuki and plans to kill it, but the Tanuki tricks the farmer's wife into letting him go. He then kills her, cooks her, and pretends to be her while the peasant eats her. He reveals his trick and the peasant is devastated. The rabbit plays a trick on the Tanuki as revenge, but it's not enough, so they kill Tanuki. And then they live happily ever after. Cannibalism, murder, and platonic cohabitation with your BFF rabbit who helped you avenge your wife's death FTW?
7. The Flying Trunk: A merchant's son spends all his inheritance, but one of his friends conveniently gives him a magical trunk he just happened to have? The merchant's son flies to Turkey and seduces the princess whom he tells he's a god. She agrees to marry him, and then he wins over her parents by telling them a story where all the kitchen things are having a contest? The same night he puts on a fireworks show, but a spark burns his trunk and he doesn't go to marry the princess. Instead he travels and tells stories, while the princess waits for him and pines? Whatever dude, no sympathy.
8. The Snow-Man: he's newly built and gets told about life by the yard dog, whose tragic back-story we learn. Then the snowman falls in love with the stove. We find it's because at his core he was a broom used to clean out the stove. In the long run none of this matters.
9. The Shirt Collar: the moral of this story is about god's judgment of our souls and how he'll know all about our lives, so we better be good. But really it's about a douche dude-bro who was harassing women and got what he deserved.
10. The Princess in the Chest: king and queen have no babies and king blames queen, though obviously he doesn't know how babies are made. He tells the queen that he'll be back in a year, and if there's no baby by then, he'll get another wife. Queen goes to a witch(?) who tells her to eat a magical plant that will give her a daughter. But the daughter cannot be seen by anyone but a special nurse for 14 years. The king breaks that condition, and the princess dies. Before she dies she makes the king promise to put her in a wooden chest in the church and have someone watch over her every night. Every morning after that the watchers are nowhere to be found. Then Christian the smith comes by, and gets drunk enough to accept the job. He tries running away the first night, but is stopped by a little man who tells him how to survive the night. This happens two more times until finally the princess is free of the curse and they get married.
But who's the little man? And why is it later implied that Christian imagined the whole thing in a drunken stupor? And the princess is 14, and possibly half magical plant. Don't drink and drive.
11. The Three Brothers: whichever was the best at his trade would inherit the house, except they were all masters and they all liked each other, so they all lived together happily ever after and were buried in the same grave the end.
12. The Snow Queen: ladies helping each other, what's not to like? I think I'd love to read a long retelling, where we get the detailed version of Gerda's journey and Key's stay with the queen. Also, the Queen isn't the villain in this, she's just a powerful natural force. The villain is that little goblin with the mirror.
13. The Fir-tree: the tree wants to grow up, so it doesn't notices the beauty around it. It gets cut down and used for Christmas, which is the happiest night of its life. Then it's promptly forgotten for a while, until its used for kindling. The end. Feel sad for a wasted life.
14. Hans, the Mermaid's Son: he's supernaturally strong and gets hired by some guy who's super afraid of him and spends the whole story trying to get rid of him. He even goes so far as to send Hans to Purgatory to ask for tribute, which Hans gets. This has a similar flavor to a Russian tale by Pushkin, but the guy in it is not supernatural, just a "fool," and he ends up killing his master as payment for his work.
15. Peter Bull: I guess it's lucky that Peter turned out to be an OK guy, and probably took care of the old people because they left him the money? The clerk is just a con artist, but then again, he was asked to teach a calf to talk.
16. The Bird Grip: literally Ivan and the Wolf, but with a fox and a blindness subplot. We are at least given a reason for the fox to help. But I still don't see why the horse, princess, and bird were happy to see the prince. The fox was a spirit whose life he ransomed and who needed his curse removed, but all the others were stolen. Maybe we're to assume their lives sucked and that the kidnapping liberated them? And I guess the three kings just never looked for their stuff and people ever?
17. Snowflake: they make a child out of snow and are surprised she's unhappy in the summer?
18. I Know What I Have Learned: an old man visits his three daughters who are each married to a troll. Each troll does a magic trick to feed them, then gives the old man money which the man loses on the way home because he suddenly remembers about his cow and just leave the money in the woods. He tries telling his wife about the money, but she never sees it, so she berates him and he says he knows what he learned. He then tries to perform the tricks the trolls did but gets hurt and dies. So really he learned nothing.
19. The Cunning Shoemaker: fool me once, shame on you, but any more than that and maybe it's not the shoemaker who's clever but the robbers who are total gullible idiots.
20. The King's Beautiful Wife: the king wants to marry the most beautiful woman in the world. Instead he accidentally marries an 85 year old with gorgeous hands who outwits him by telling him she cannot be seen in the sun. When he finds out she's old he throws her out of the window, but some fairies arrive and turn her beautiful and kind and wise and the king begs her forgiveness. She lies to her sister about her beauty (she tells her to cut her head), which seems kinda cold.
21. Catherine and her Destiny: destiny comes to Catherine and asks her if she wants a happy youth or a happy old age. Catherine chooses a happy old age and her father immediately dies and she´s forced to become a servant, but every time she finds a place her destiny chases her out. Finally, after 7 years she gets another lady's destiny to talk to hers. Her destiny gives her a ball of silk which is just the right color for the Kings bride's dress. He promised to pay its weight in gold, and no matter how much gold he puts on the scales the silk is still too heavy. So he decides to marry Catherine instead of his bride and they lived happily ever after. I wonder what the ex felt about this whole thing.
22. The Hermit and the King's Daughter: so, it's the flying ship story, except the guy is brainless. He has people with very specific skills, but when he's given very specific tasks he doesn't think to use those skills? Also, YOUR WIFE ISN'T PROPERTY! YOU DON'T CUT HER IN HALF AND GIVE HALF OF HER TO ANYONE!
23. The Water of Life: three brothers and a sister build a palace and a church, but are told that they're missing the Water of Life, the Tree of Beauty, and a Talking Bird. To get them, hey have to climb a mountain covered with stones who were once people, and who jeer them as they walk up. If at any time they turn around they also become stone. The three brothers fail, but the sister succeeds and then the Prince marries her the end.
24. The Wounded Lion: he's actually a prince who's cursed into being a lion by a giant and the only way to reverse the curse is to make a jacket for the giant out of a princesses' hair. Good thing the prince has a sister who can volunteer her hair...oops, no, some random girl has to beg the sister for the hair, not knowing she's the sister. But in the end the girl frees the prince and they get married. I wonder if the girl's master ever got his animals back (the giant stole them).
25. The Man Without a Heart: seven brothers are sick of having to do housework, so six of them go looking for wives. On the way an old man asks them to find him a wife, but they ignore him. They find seven sisters, and on the way back the old man demands the youngest as wife, and when they refuse he turns them into stone and takes the girl. She seems cool with it, but worries that he'll die and she'll be stuck alone in the woods, to which the old man replies that he's a wizard and his heart is hidden so he can't die. Soon, the youngest brother arrives and the girl tells him about the heart. He searches for it and gets some help from animals on the way, then kills the heart which was a bird. He free the brothers and sisters and everyone marries.
26. The Two Brothers: they catch and release a magical fish who grants them horses and armor. Older brother saves a princess from a dragon, but ventures on for almost 8 years before marrying her. Soon after the marriage he leaves her to fight a witch and gets killed. Younger brother finds out, and comes to the palace to figure out what happened. Princess thinks he's her husband (because they look similar?), and he doesn't correct her, but he also doesn't let her sleep with him. He rescues older brother with the help of random hermit, but is killed by older brother who thinks he fucked his wife. When he finds out younger brother didn't, he feels bad and resurrects him with the witch's magical ointment. And then they live happily ever after.
27. Master and Pupil: a youth pretends he can't read and learns to be a magician, then uses his shape-shifting abilities to con people. The magician hears about this and they fight, but the youth eventually wins. We're supposed to believe he never uses his powers again. Read a similar story, only the wizard had a princess and her court imprisoned as animals and objects.
28. The Golden Lion: two brothers try to find a princess in a castle, but fail and the king kills them. The youngest brother listens to a beggar-woman who suggests he build a Trojan lion. He sneaks into the palace where he shares two lines of dialogue with the princess and she agrees to help him. He them goes to the king, finds the princess, and they get married. The king was a dick.
29. The Sprig of Rosemary: a woman finds a magical underground palace and marries the prince, but is told not to touch a certain chest. She does and finds her husband's magical snake-skin. The palace crumbles around her. She seeks her husband via Sun, Moon, and Wind, and gets a magical gift from each. She finds him without a memory of her and about to marry an ugly princess, but she manages to infiltrate the castle and jog his memory. Then they get married and no one has a problem with it?
30.The White Dove: two princes are forced to promise their youngest, unborn brother to a witch. She comes to collect the prince many years later and gives him impossible tasks. He is assisted by a princess-turned-dove, who was either herself a witch or learned all the tricks during her imprisonment. They escape, using more magic, and live happily ever after. It's probably very useful in negotiations to have a witch-wife. Oh, you don't want to sign the treaty? Oops, the Queen just turned your soldiers into turnips, would you care to reconsider?
31.The Troll's Daughter: the troll is a great magician who captured all the wild animals and has all his neighbors indebted to him. He also hid his daughter all alone at the bottom of the ocean. A young man starts working for the troll, spending the first year as a rabbit, the second year as a raven, and the third as a fish--which is when he meets the daughter who tells him the complex steps necessary to kill her father and free her. The youth follows those steps and kills the troll, at which point all the neighboring kinds make him emperor. Fathers: don't imprison your daughters. They will find a way to kill you.
32. Esben and the Witch: more like Esben who himself is some sort of witch and his 11 ungrateful brothers. I want to know more about the mom. Did she teach him magic?
33. Princess Minon-Minette: three fairies each raise a royal child.
a. King S is raised by Inconstance, who teaches him nothing useful and there's almost a civil war, but his mad playing calms everyone down. Then he goes looking for a wife and meets a princess who's so light that she gets carried away by the wind. He decides not to marry her.
b. Another fairy raised Minon-Minette, and wants her to marry S, because he's a good dude? So she makes him help her, but afterwards he can't win the princess (he has no game), so the fairy gives him a silk string and he goes away.
c. A third fairy gets upset that Minon-Minette doesn't want to marry her charge, and curses the princess to unhappiness until (insert improbable event here).
d. S wonders into the Iron King's land and gets imprisoned, but escapes thanks to the magical string. Minon-Minette hears about this and goes to war against the Iron King, but the fairy who cursed her captures her. But the princess' fairy sneaks her a magical fan which flies into the air, where she meets S, who had been using the magical string?
e. They go to war against the Iron King.
f. Profit.
34. Maiden Bright-Eye: she feeds a magical dude and he gives her beauty and coins-falling-out-of-mouth. Then the ugly stepsister beats the magical dude and gets ugliness and toads. Then the king wants to marry the pretty sister because her brother works for him. But the stepsister kills her on the way and marries the king, who finds out she's ugly and is terribly upset with the brother, who was aware of what's going on the whole time. Everything could have been resolved with the brother speaking up.
35. The Merry Wives: the tailor's wife, the carpenter's wife, and the smith's wife are all friends, but always argue about whose husband is the stupidest. Finally, they have a contest, where the tailor's wife convinces her husband to be a dog, the carpenter's wife convinces her husband he's dead, and the smith's wife convinces him to go to the carpenter's funeral in his birthday suit. The carpenter's wife wins.
36. King Lindorm: first, the child-is-a-serpent and gets rescued by a lady who makes him take his skins off. Second, the stepmother wants to destroy the stepdaughter. Third, the king is away at war and through switched letters is told his children are whelps, and then in another switched letter the queen is supposed put to death. Fourth, queen in disguise helps an unrelated stranger with getting his soul back. Fifth, king comes back and goes to look for his queen but doesn't recognize her when he sees her. Lastly, the evil stepmother is killed. But what happened to the king's younger brother, who thought he was the rightful king his whole life?
37. The Jackal, the Dove and the Panther: the Jackal eats a baby dove, almost murders a heron, and then eats up 10 baby panthers and gets the mother killed. Harsh.
38. The Little Hare: more like different stories thrown together. 1. a man gets his wife the liver of a nyamatsane by killing the nyamatsane grandmother and then wearing her skin. The liver is so salty that the wife drinks ALL the water. 2. the hare drinks water when it's not allowed and blames the rabbit. 3. the hare burns the rabbit to death. 4. the hare gets the lion lots of game, but then kills the lion by tying it to the roof. 5. the hare wears the lion's skin and kills lots of hyenas, but is found out and has to cut his ears off. He's a shit.
39. The Sparrow with the Slit Tongue: a kind man has a mean wife. When he saves a sparrow and keeps it as a pet the wife grows jealous and hurts the sparrow before chasing it away. The husband fails to find it, until one day he finds a house where a maiden lives claiming she's the sparrow. She hosts him as they catch up and gives him a gift. When he comes home the wife scolds him, but she also wants a gift and he tells her where to go. Instead of jewels the sparrow gives the wife some poison serpents.
40. The Story of Ciccu: the STORIES. First he acquires and loses three magical objects. Secondly he and his two older brothers sell some figs to the king, but each brother meets a magical man and as only Ciccu is nice to him, only he gets rewarded. So the king gives Ciccu a job, where he apparently befriends a talking, all-knowing horse. By this point the brothers hate him and give the king ideas for tasks to send Ciccu to accomplish. The last one involves kidnapping a bride and retrieving her items, and ends with jumping into an oven. The king dies and Ciccu gets to marry the bride and become king because who cares about succession? And the bride's parents never looked for her?
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May 27, 20213.5 stars
It's taken me so long to read this in part because the formatting of the Kindle edition I have is atrocious. There's no working table of contents for Kindle or within the book itself. The table of contents within the book is just a long string of titles with no links, which doesn't work for my purposes. Even the titles of the stories within the book are just in regular text, there's nothing to show a new story is beginning which can be confusing. I'm trying to not let this affect my rating since these are issues specific to the edition I have, but it is very off-putting and it made me not want to read the book for so long. I kept trying to force myself to pick it up since it's been on my tbr month after month, and I did start a few times but stopped because the formatting just doesn't work for what I like to do with these books. It didn't make for a pleasant reading experience, but I managed to push my way through.
As I usually find with these books, it was a pretty mixed bag. There were quite a few stories that I liked, and there were some that I didn't. It's so hard to figure out a rating for these because of this. Some of the stories did feel similar and relied on similar tropes, to the point where I asked myself "Didn't I read a story like this already?" There were a few stories that surprised me by mixing some of the familiar tropes as well, but it seems like a lot of the stories rely on the same tropes.
Favorites:
The Snow Queen
Good:
The Cat's Elopement
The House in the Wood
Uraschimataro and the Turtle
The Snow Man
The Princess in the Chest
The Fir-Tree
Catherine and Her Destiny
How the Hermit Helped to win the King's Daughter
The Water of Life
The Wounded Lion
The Man Without a Heart
The Two Brothers
Master and Pupil
The Golden Lion
The Sprig of Rosemary
The Troll's Daughter
Esben and the Witch
Princess Minon-Minette
Maiden Bright-eye
The Sparrow with the Split Tongue
Okay:
How the Dragon was Tricked
The Slaying of the Tanuki
The Flying Trunk
The Shirt-Collar
The Three Brothers
Hans, the Mermaid's Son
Peter Bull
The Bird 'Grip'
Snowflake
The Cunning Shoemaker
The King Who Would Have a Beautiful Wife
The White Dove
The Merry Wives
King Lindorm
The Jackal, the Dove, and the Panther
The Story of Ciccu
Don Giovanni de la Fortuna
Didn't like:
The Goblin and the Grocer
I Know What I Have Learned
The Little Hare
It's taken me so long to read this in part because the formatting of the Kindle edition I have is atrocious. There's no working table of contents for Kindle or within the book itself. The table of contents within the book is just a long string of titles with no links, which doesn't work for my purposes. Even the titles of the stories within the book are just in regular text, there's nothing to show a new story is beginning which can be confusing. I'm trying to not let this affect my rating since these are issues specific to the edition I have, but it is very off-putting and it made me not want to read the book for so long. I kept trying to force myself to pick it up since it's been on my tbr month after month, and I did start a few times but stopped because the formatting just doesn't work for what I like to do with these books. It didn't make for a pleasant reading experience, but I managed to push my way through.
As I usually find with these books, it was a pretty mixed bag. There were quite a few stories that I liked, and there were some that I didn't. It's so hard to figure out a rating for these because of this. Some of the stories did feel similar and relied on similar tropes, to the point where I asked myself "Didn't I read a story like this already?" There were a few stories that surprised me by mixing some of the familiar tropes as well, but it seems like a lot of the stories rely on the same tropes.
Favorites:
The Snow Queen
Good:
The Cat's Elopement
The House in the Wood
Uraschimataro and the Turtle
The Snow Man
The Princess in the Chest
The Fir-Tree
Catherine and Her Destiny
How the Hermit Helped to win the King's Daughter
The Water of Life
The Wounded Lion
The Man Without a Heart
The Two Brothers
Master and Pupil
The Golden Lion
The Sprig of Rosemary
The Troll's Daughter
Esben and the Witch
Princess Minon-Minette
Maiden Bright-eye
The Sparrow with the Split Tongue
Okay:
How the Dragon was Tricked
The Slaying of the Tanuki
The Flying Trunk
The Shirt-Collar
The Three Brothers
Hans, the Mermaid's Son
Peter Bull
The Bird 'Grip'
Snowflake
The Cunning Shoemaker
The King Who Would Have a Beautiful Wife
The White Dove
The Merry Wives
King Lindorm
The Jackal, the Dove, and the Panther
The Story of Ciccu
Don Giovanni de la Fortuna
Didn't like:
The Goblin and the Grocer
I Know What I Have Learned
The Little Hare
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